_Mushrooms with Bacon._--Take some full-grown mushrooms, and having cleaned them, procure a few rashers of nice streaky bacon, and fry it in the usual manner. When nearly done, add a dozen or so of mushrooms, and fry them slowly until they are cooked. In this process they will absorb all the fat of the bacon, and with the addition of a little salt and pepper, will form a most appetising breakfast relish. _Mushroom Stems_, if young and fresh, make a capital dish for those who are not privileged to eat the mushrooms. Rub them quite clean, and after washing them in salt and water, slice them to the thickness of a shilling, then place them in a saucepan with sufficient milk to stew them tender; throw in a piece of butter and some flour for thickening, and salt and pepper to taste. Serve upon a toast of bread, in a hot dish, and add sippets of toasted bread. This makes a light and very delicate supper dish, and is not bad sauce to a boiled fowl. CHAPTER XII. SOME OF THE MOST COMMON AND USEFUL EDIBLE FUNGI. “Whole hundredweights of rich, wholesome diet rotting under the trees; woods teeming with food, and not one hand to gather it; and this, perhaps, in the midst of potato-blight, poverty, and all manner of privations, and public prayers against imminent famine.” _Dr. Badham._ VALUABLE as is the common mushroom, it is indisputable that not a few other kinds are also capable of affording excellent food. Therefore, figures are given of the most prevalent, useful, and easily recognised kinds of edible fungi, as well as of the common mushrooms of our gardens and markets. These figures have been admirably drawn by Mr. W. G. Smith, and are accompanied by what seemed the most satisfactory accounts of the characters and properties that are obtainable. The spores which accompany the figures are uniformly enlarged seven hundred diameters. _Marasmius oreades_ (Fairy-ring Champignon). _Pileus_ smooth, fleshy, convex, subumbonate, generally more or less compressed, tough, coriaceous, elastic, wrinkled; when water-soaked, brown; when dry, of a buff or cream-colour, the umbo often remaining red-brown, as if scorched; _gills_ free, distant, ventricose, of the same tint as the pileus, but more pale; _stem_ equal, solid, twisted, very tough and fibrous, of a pale silky-white colour. [Illustration: Fig. 30--1. _Marasmius oreades_ (Fairy-ring Champignon). Pastures, roadsides, and downs, in the autumn; colour, pale buff; _gills broad and far apart_; diameter, 1 to 2 inches. Fig. 30--2. _Marasmius urens_ (False Champignon). Woods and pastures in the autumn; colour, pale buff; _gills narrow and crowded together_; diameter, ½ inch to 1½ inches.] The fairy-ring agaric is a valuable little fungus, and common on almost every lawn. In hilly pastures it generally appears in broad brown patches, either circular or forming a portion of a circle.